


Salvage

by Darkestwolfx



Series: March Prompt a Day 2020 [3]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, SOS, Up from the Depths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:02:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23130649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkestwolfx/pseuds/Darkestwolfx
Summary: Gordon was the salvaging type, not the one who needed saving.
Relationships: Penelope Creighton-Ward & Gordon Tracy
Series: March Prompt a Day 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660813
Comments: 4
Kudos: 10





	Salvage

**Author's Note:**

> They'll be two updates tonight, so I'm just going to throw them up and leave you to read them.

**3: Salvage**

Summary: Gordon was the salvaging type, not the one who needed saving.

Words: 851

Spoilers: Potential spoilers for _'Up from the Depths'_ (S2E6) and _'SOS: Part II'_ (S3E13).

* * *

Gordon was often the man in charge of the salvaging. He was the one who dropped down into the depths to save ships, subs, people and their cargo. That was the routine he was used to, and he could make those calls now with relative ease. He'd seen many things and he had many plans up his sleeve.

The water was his home in many ways, and nothing could stop him from navigating the tides.

He rated his rescues, just like all his brothers did, but there was never one to top finding the TV-21. The Mechanic may have got away with it in the end, and he may have left little salvageable of Thunderbird Four in his wake (and yes, that had taken some time to get over), but Gordon ultimately was the one who held the memory of seeing Dad's name appear before his eyes.

He was the one who had led the salvage operation, who had pulled the lost and forgotten craft from its resting place. That was all _him_.

When it came to water, he was the one. No one else piloted Thunderbird Four, it was his and his alone, and the ocean was his forgotten home. If there was such a thing as previous lives – and Gordon had still yet to decide on which side of the fence he sat on, but still - he knew he would have been a fish, or maybe even a whale. He would have been something powerful with prowess that swam the waves just as he paddled in the tides. He would have been a king of the sea, just as he tried to be now.

And really, he was, because with Thunderbird Four, there was nothing he couldn't accomplish down in those deep blue depths.

Well, almost nothing. And he'd seen most things that you could expect for an underwater operative to witness. But he had to say almost, for there was something even he couldn't achieve, and it had been painfully proven to him.

He rated his rescues, just like he knew his brothers did, but there was always one which would live at the bottom of the list; which nothing to come would change. It was the one rescue that would never be more than a haze in his mind.

And not hazy because he was choosing to forget about it. No, part of him almost wished that he could know about it, because he hated having that gap.

The one rescue he didn't remember, was his own. Yet, Gordon had decided that even if he could remember it, it would never change where it ranked.

He remembered putting his helmet on, just in case, because all that rock was definitely coming down. He remembered waking briefly, the wrong way up and with a visual akin to that of fine cracks filtering through an ice cube. He remembered straining to hit the right buttons, making it so that John would know, would be able to send them all to find him, but everything else was _pain,_ and _crushing_ and _fear._

_And dark._

Almost blissfully dark. Only almost.

They got him out, because he woke up in hospital and they were all with him. The hospital, not Tracy Island, and that said it all. This was something even they couldn't deal with. He was in far less pain now, but that was probably just the drugs shielding him. He knew pain like that he'd just felt didn't disappear for no apparent reason. At some point those drugs would wear off and it would come back.

They'd tried to fill in the blanks for him, but they weren't all sinking in. He understood that they'd had to leave Four behind and save only him. He understood that Lady Penelope had been the one to come in and get him, he understood that John was down here because the odds had clearly been stacked against his favour. The hospital had already suggested that, but pulling John down to Earth… that didn't happen for a scratch or sprain. He understood the fussing was because they'd all panicked when they couldn't get any response from him, and thought their luck might have finally run out. He understood all that, but the real specifics had gone beyond him then. Later he would have been able to comprehend them, but he chose not to hear much more of it.

He didn't like to be reminded of the time that the flipper was on the other foot, so to speak.

Usually he did the salvaging, but for once his family had had to come down into his depths to rescue him.

Pity the same couldn't be said for Thunderbird Four. _Again._

There were many things Gordon had salvaged from under the sea, but only one time that it had ever needed to be him. He planned to keep it that way; he liked being the one capable of salvage, not the one in need of it.

Gordon was the salvaging type; not the one who needed saving.

And that was just how he liked it.


End file.
